"For everything there is a season..." There are seasons in our lives that can only be viewed from the lens of retirement.

Friday, April 25, 2008

An Old Versus Modern (Postmodern?) Friday Five

Singing Owl has posted the Friday Five with some interesting questions. It is going to make me think because I am getting to the age when I am beginning to really think about what has changed in the world

Yesterday I had two separate conversations in which people were musing about how much change is occurring. The WW II generation, of which my mom is a part, went from horse and buggy to automobiles, saw the lessening, or even the end of many diseases, went from widespread use of kerosene lamps and outhouses (in the country, and most folks were rural)) to a totally electrified and plumbed society. The fastest means of communication was a telegraph. The second conversation--gulp--was about MY generation and how much change occurred in the last half of the 20th century. The person said his 13 year old had not seen a vinyl record album until a few days before, couldn't remember a time without cell phones, and on and on.

As for the questions!

1. What modern convenience/invention could you absolutely, positively not live without?Ooooh, this would be a toss up between my laptop and my cell phone because I have a Blackberry. I get my email on my phone. I couldn’t live without my car either—I would consider that a modern convenience as we did not have an automobile until I was well into grade school. They were impossible to buy right after WWII.

2. What modern convenience/invention do you wish had never seen the light of day?

IPods. Why? I am tired of people listening to the things rather than carrying on a conversation with strangers.

3. Do you own a music-playing device older than a CD player? I have cassette players. Yes, more than one which I use either in the car or when walking when I want to listen to a book on tape that I can still get from the library. I still have a turn table on my stereo set but we don’t use it any more but we do use the radio part of the system. We still have some vinyl lp’s in the basement.

4. Do you find the rapid change in our world exciting, scary, a mix...or something else?

I can’t keep up with the technology. I need to spend some time with colleagues who understand the new stuff because I don’t understand the jargon used in the directions. Even the language used by Revgals on how to link flummoxes me. It doesn’t scare me; it irritates me and I feel dumb because I can’t keep up.

5. What did our forebears have that we have lost and you'd like to regain?

TRUTH! The Baby-Boomer tendancy to trivialize truth is really beginning to bug me. Granted, there is a wider understanding of point of view. But the human heart knows what is true and it drawn to it like we are drawn to good art, good music, beauty and love that is wholesome.

5 comments:

I'm with you on a lot of this...I have an i-pod that I can sort of use, but I need a twelve year old to help me. I love what you have to say about truth. Thanks also for sharing EK's sermon in your last post! That was fabulous.

I'm umm...not of the same generation as you, but just as flummoxed by some of the tech. Keep the faith. That's what the middlge-schoolers in my youth group are for: programming phones and iPods, helping me understand some of this stuff.

Are you talking about the part that says "url of your post goes here"? I can't even tell you how long it took me to figure that out! URL=Uniform Resource Locater, a fancy name for the address of your post, which in your case means "http://foraseason.blogspot.com". Pretty easy once you learn the lingo!

Your statement that the human heart knows what is true and is drawn to it simply beautiful, and I needed some beautiful today. Thank you.

Loud Sounding Wisdom

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.(Madeleine L'Engle)

"Do we really want a gracious God?Certainly we do -- for ourselves;but can we have a gracious Godif we don't believe that the same graceis given to those sinners outside our church doors,outside our faith, outside our boundaries of acceptability?" Pr. Brian Stroffregen

Blogger's Prayer

"Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord."Book of Common Prayer

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About Me

I am an unabashedly liberal Episcopal priest from a time when being a liberal was a "good" thing. If I am knee-jerk about anything it is about seeing that justice is done by those of us who call ourselves Christians or who are about serving Christ in the Church.